Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Or Superheroes against arch nemeses. Although I started relatively early, I still ended up against the wire. But after the flurry of scissors, felt and thread, when the dust had settled, we were poised for the fight.

Well, all except Robin, here. He was pretty out of sorts. I guess that’s why he’s just the sidekick. He gets a little overemotional sometimes.

I made our costumes out of things we had or things I thrifted and put them all together myself, and I have to admit to being a little bit proud of my accomplishments this year. I know, pride goeth before the fall... but I’m willing to take that chance because as far as sewing is concerned, I sure can’t fall far AND any triumph is worth it.

Over the next few days, I’ll take you through the outfits and show you how I created them all. Then, if you want to be a family of heroes vs. villains at any point in the future, you’ll be on your way! I based our costumes on the 60’s TV show, not the 90’s movies or the more recent versions.

I’ll start with that deliciously evil, slinky villain, Cat Woman. Not that I consider myself slinky. Or deliciously evil, for that matter. Obviously the physique of this character was kind of a stretch for me, especially considering I barely cleared 5’5” with my boots on. I’m starting here because my costume was the easiest one to create. Mostly because I decided against a skin tight sparkly pleather body suit.

I started with the basics. I had a pair of stretchy black sweat pants and knee high black smokin’ hot boots already. (The pants probably could have been tighter to be a bit more true to the original, but lets face it, I could barely pull off the stretchy sweat pants.) (I did wear leggings at first - to the church party we went to - but wasn’t super comfortable walking all over the neighborhood like that.)

I got a long sleeve black shirt at a thrift store for $2. I know, I know, “she didn’t have a long sleeve black shirt in her closet??” No. I didn’t. But I DID have a short sleeve black tunic-y type T that I threw on over the long sleeve shirt because it was longer and more coverage is a good thing.

I found a kitty ear headband at Target in the dollar bins. Which was cheaper than it would have cost to by black fur to make my own. The inside of the ear was orange, though, so I used heat n’ bond to attach black felt to cover that up.

I drew out a template for the mask. Then, I cut the side off of a faux leather purse that was in my stash. I pinned the template down and cut it out, then machine sewed elastic to the sides of the mask. I was going to use felt, but I ran out after a failed attempt - twice - of my son’s mask. And I’m really glad I did or I never would have thought to use the purse. And I like the leather so much better!

Here's my template for the cat woman mask. I didn't draw the eye holes, because everyone's eyes are different shapes and sizes and distances apart, etc. So I just held the template up to my face and marked where my eyes were and then cut out holes that slanted up like a cat. Hope this template will save you from hours of drawing and redrawing - as I did.

You’ll notice in this picture that cat woman had some “killer” gloves with claws coming out the tips of the fingers. Crazy weird, I know.

So I used my super cheapo black winter gloves (the kind that comes in the two-pack, you know?) and used hot glue to adhere some fake black nails to the fingers. I did buy the fake nails at walmart, so technically those weren’t thrifted. For the record, they were incredibly hard to maneuver in. I couldn’t help the kids for fear of stabbing their eyes out. So I didn’t wear them long. Probably why she isn’t wearing them often in the show...

For her belt, I bought a 50 cent braided belt at the thrift store in black and spray painted it gold. Is it wrong that I actually like it more now and kind of want to wear it normally?

For her signature necklace, I had some random button pins from various places. I also already had some very thin cotton craft rope. I sprayed them gold and pinned the buttons on the rope “chain” in the right places. So it kind of simulates hers.

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